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HISTORICAL POSTCARDS OF SPRINGFIELD,
MISSOURI

Birdseye
View of Springfield, Looking North

The
top of the ten-story Woodruff Building was a great place to take photographs showing Springfield as it looked
from above. The Springfield Greene County Library owns two copies
of this postcard, one postmarked 1911 and one postmarked 1912. The
photograph was probably taken shortly after the Woodruff was built,
in 1911. It sits at 329-337 St. Louis Street and was Springfield's
first real skyscraper.

The closest building to the Woodruff that can be seen in the photograph
is the First Presbyterian Church. Its steeple and the top of its roof
are all that show in the photograph. Its address was 219 North Jefferson
Avenue. Jefferson Avenue is the street that runs along the right (or
east) side of the photograph. Parts of Olive Street can be seen if
you look at the street in front of the Silsby Stove Company, the most
clearly marked building in the photographs. The building to the right
and across Olive from the Silsby Stove Company is the Frisco Office Building, which was built in 1910 as headquarters
for the Frisco Railway. It opened in 1911, the same year as the Woodruff.
It is currently called the Landmark Building. The Springfield Paper
Supply Company can be seen in the left side of the postcard, on the
north side of Olive Street. A streetcar can be seen far north on Jefferson
Avenue.